NFV Security Considerations for Cloud-Based Mobile Virtual Network Operators

Cloud computing offers benefits of sharing computing and network resources among multiple mobile network operators. To utilize such benefits, in earlier paper we proposed a platform called telecommunication network as a service (TaaS). Sharing of such resources in cloud technology affects security of whole mobile network in general and software defined network (SDN) & network functions virtualization (NFV) in particular. In this paper, we have analyzed open platform for network functions virtualization (OPNFV) activities and compared them with TaaS concept to find commonalities and see how well it addresses security concerns outlined for TaaS. Through a comparison we show OPNFV security doesn’t cover application security at all, however it partially covers data security and considerably covers hypervisor, SDN & NFV security. Therefore, OPNFV security needs to be revised in areas of data and application domain specially to meet the security requirements for TaaS. Furthermore, we conclude that our proposed TaaS platform implements at least current security requirements outlined in OPNFV specification.